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Get rid of the annoying blur effect in iOS 7

One of the many new visual effects added in iOS 7 is a blur effect. You have no doubt seen it on a daily basis if you use an iOS device running the latest version of iOS. By pulling up Control Center, or using the keyboard in most apps (especially Messages) you’ve seen how objects in the background are blurred out by the graphics being layered on top.

It’s a neat magic trick, and definitely adds a bit of depth to iOS. But not everyone is going to be amused by seeing app icons or chat bubbles blurred out.

As brought to my attention by Lifehacker, which pulled this simple setting tweak out of a post onGuiding Tech, it’s possible to disable this blur effect and solidify all graphic overlays.

In addition to removing the effect, Guiding Tech claims it will improve performance and battery life on older iPhone models running iOS 7. I can’t verify this claim, but if you’re having a lot of issues with iOS 7 on an iPhone 4 or 4S, it’s worth a shot.

As with many of the UI tweaks on iOS 7, you can find the control to disable the blur effect in Settings > General > Accessibility.

Once you’ve navigated to the Accessibility section, find the option titled “Increase Contrast” and select it. Switch the toggle to On, and immediately pull up Control Center or pull down Notification Center.

You should see a drastic change in the overall appearance of both. In addition to changes there, you’ll find subtle changes throughout the entire operating system, both in and out of apps. Again, another obvious place to see this is in Messages when you are typing out a message. Instead of seeing chat bubbles behind the keyboard, you’ll now have an undisturbed background.

Now that you know it’s possible to disable this feature, are you going to? If so, why?